In wired and/or wireless local area networks (e.g. LAN and WLAN, respectively) devices may use an access mechanism to access the network. An example of an access mechanism may be a Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) and, more specifically, CSMA/CA with a binary exponential backoff method.
In this method, the devices, also termed stations, may use a predefined time slot of a time frame to access the network. This time frame may be known in the art as a contention window (CW). The CW may have two parameters, namely, CWmin and CWmax, wherein CWmin may be defined as a minimal size of the CW and CWmax may be defined as the maximal size of the CW. The CSMA/CA mechanism may increase CWmin until CWmax is reached or until receiving an acknowledge (ACK) message indicating successful transmission of a packet. The process of increasing the CWmin from its minimum value upward may be repeated for the duration of a transmission of a packet. The optimal CW range depends on the probability of collision in the network. Thus, the fixed pre-defined values of CWmin and CWmax may result in an incensement of the number of collisions. Furthermore, packets may be unnecessarily delayed before being transmitted. Furthermore, the data throughput in the network may be impaired.
Thus, there is a need for better ways to mitigate the above described disadvantages.
It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration, elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggerated relative to other elements for clarity. Further, where considered appropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures to indicate corresponding or analogous elements.